SupremeFX X-Fi sound card shipped with ASUS Rampage II Extreme

Ivan IvanovApr 29, 2009, 12:49 PM

HI All

Now I got my new Core i7 based machine with ASUS Rampage II Extreme. As you well know this motherboard comes with that SupremeFX X-Fi sound card, which supose to be onboard but it's not - there are too many other "junk" onboard... . This sound card appears to be a whole full of problems as I found out afterwards by different forums . I don't know about the sound quality 'haven't heared anything yet . However none of those forums discusses exactly my problem, here it is:

The OS detects 3 (yes three) sound cards instead of one?! When I started installing the driver, it was properly installed for one of them and the others were hangining as yellow question-marks in device manager. NO sound of course.

I've installed driver for each one of them and when it was done their status was code 10 "device cannot start", and of course that's because there is no device!

I want to get rid of my "extra" sound cards (sell them to somebody maybe ). I can't just uninstall them by right click on their respective yellow question-marks in device manager 'cause the next time I turn on the PC Windows will detect them again and will annoy me asking to install driver

RMA means Return Merchanise Authorization, simply put, when you want to return a product back to the vendor or seller, IF they'll let you return it, you need to request an RMA number from them first, this way they can track the return. When requesting an RMA number you usually specify whether you want a replacement or return.

Just curious, did you try one of your other sound cards first? That SupremeFX card that comes with the Rampage II Extreme is junk itself, it's a software based sound card, not hardware. In other words, most of the sound processing is done through software. A card such as a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer is much better.

I agree completely, but it's very inconvenient to have to return the entire board just because of a software-based sound card which may be faulty. Installing the drivers for "hardware" such as this has to be done in a certain order, usually Intel chipset driver first, storage driver, then the sound driver. Also I wouldn't install off of the CD, I'd grab the latest driver available from Asus's web-site before I'd write it off as faulty.

Thank you guys about the info you are giving me Now, it appears that I realy have 3 sound cards! the first one is the SupremeFX, the second one is integrated intel HD sound card inside ICH10R Southbridge, and the third one IS SOMEWHERE THERE just like the truth! I mean that I still don't know exactly where it is. That's because I don't have much time to look on my new PC (I have no patience for weekend to come ). I was confused before, because all three of them appear with identical names in the device manager.

In the user's guide they talk about some front panel sound card, as if you'd use separate sound card for the front headphones and mic jacks . There is way too poor info on this in the user's guide. I had no time to investigate in greater detail. But I'm pretty sure that at least one of those two extra onboard cards I will not be able to use (and I don't need to) it's just disused appendage that they didn't disable so OS detects it and asks for driver. And we are talking about the highest possible end of ASUS game mother board .

About RMA I think this is not an option to me , because the small town I live in there are no big PC stores (surprisingly ) and the policy of those town's small PC stores, which are just distributors of the big ones, is to try to fix the problem and if can't then to return the pard, and this suggest that I would have to give them my entire PC and they will mess arround with it... I will never allow this!!! I prefer to put aside "The SupremeFX", disable the others and use the 5.1 USB Audio I already have.

Not to mention that they would treat this as a software problem and will deny to take back the board at all. I knew that when I bought the PC, I just did not expect any problems of such expensive board.

Unfortunately I have no internet at my house where the PC is (only at job). And I won't be ta job in few days so I won't be able to inform you up to where I've bring it. but I will write here everithing I've tryed as soon as posible!

Well it seems that I haven't problem at all. It was just an improper installation of Windows and Drivers. After I've Installed a fresh copy of Win XP 64-bit and Drivers, one by one in the right order (WITHOUT using that damned "InstAll" feature program). As if "InstAll " will make it easier to install the drivers all at once. It's OK except that the "InstAll" doesen't do any proper installation of the drivers So if someone plans to buy ASUS Rampage II Extreme please don't install the drivers using InstAll option, install them one by one in up down order as they are listed in the Installation CD AutoRun program

And the 2 "mysterious" sound cards were the audio channels of the VIVO feature of my ATi HD 4850x2 and they are two because the video cards are two actually. This video card is nothing more special, than two HD4850s on single board internally linked by CrossFire. It's not that you don't know that of course I say it because I've just found it out

Well yes I did. As I sayed do not use the "InatAll" crap feature, install them one by one as they are listed, then install the video driver. and you won't have any problems.AND do restart whenever it asks you!!! you'll see that when you start installing the audio driver it restarts almos immediately and the installation continues even before you had loged on! thats the normal way.

I'm talking about the first tab "Drivers", what utilites you'll install is up to you

If you have any problems write here! I am with this board for more then a month it, as well as the sound card work great!

I bought the new Asus Rampage Ii Extreme also; i'm also looking for an upgraded sound card but in booklet it says only 1 pci express audio slot, but has 2 on the board. I want to buy a better sound card one with 7.1 surround sound with my speakers. I don't have the MB box which had maybe? some activation code for the dumb azz Supreme Fx X-FI mb card. I have asked Asus of course no answer they say the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series will fit and after i bought it i can say it will not fit unless u move the heatsink for X58. Need some advise please.

Next problem i bought the card as i said i would it looks awesome, i installed it in 2nd pci-e slot but i cant get any sound to come out of it. I have the cables hooked up for 5.1 Blac, green and orange using the middle on sound card. Why no sound now?

i have the exact same problem with this soundcard.. don't know whats up really WHY DOESEN'T IT WORK?! i can't install the driver because there is no soundcard installed:S um yea it is!! its glowing in there and everything so i cant see why it doesent show.. FU asus u screwed me big time

From what I've been able to find, the black slot is not a normal PCI-E x1 slot - it's actually designed purely for use with the "sound card" (which is effectively just a riser card for the jacks/sockets and doesn't do anything useful).

If this works and the other two don't, it confirms my fear that the board only has 2 working PCI-E x1 slots, both of which are right next to the graphics card slots. Then the graphics cooler makes the first unusable, leaving just one PCI-Ex1 slot, which has to be used with a real sound card because the one they've included isn't a sound card at all.This results in there being one remaining expansion slot (PCI) once a second graphics card and its cooler cover the lowest PCI slot.

I think making that black PCI-E x1 slot proprietary was a stupid move on Asus's part. It looks like a pretty decent board otherwise, it's just the layout that lets it down.

Now I got my new Core i7 based machine with ASUS Rampage II Extreme. As you well know this motherboard comes with that SupremeFX X-Fi sound card, which supose to be onboard but it's not - there are too many other "junk" onboard... . This sound card appears to be a whole full of problems as I found out afterwards by different forums . I don't know about the sound quality 'haven't heared anything yet . However none of those forums discusses exactly my problem, here it is:

The OS detects 3 (yes three) sound cards instead of one?! When I started installing the driver, it was properly installed for one of them and the others were hangining as yellow question-marks in device manager. NO sound of course.

I've installed driver for each one of them and when it was done their status was code 10 "device cannot start", and of course that's because there is no device!

I want to get rid of my "extra" sound cards (sell them to somebody maybe ). I can't just uninstall them by right click on their respective yellow question-marks in device manager 'cause the next time I turn on the PC Windows will detect them again and will annoy me asking to install driver

Any help will be appraised.

If you need some more info about my hardware, feel free to ask me!

I too have the Asus Rampage III Mobo...I have the Formula ROG edition, but basically the same mobo. The problem I am having is with the Realtek drivers are overiding the Sound Blaster drivers. Im my device mgr I see 3 or so sound drivers...one is Realtek and one nVidia (Which is installed with the nVidia Driver) and one for my logitec webcam.

I keep trying to uninstall the Realtec and get the Soundblaster device to show up. The card is there...its built on the motherboard...Ive used the software and activated it and just cannot get it to override the Realtec driver.

Ive also enabled SPDIF in the bios and enabled Hi-Def Audio...I wonder if this is the problem...Im gonna try to disable the HiDef audio from the Asus BIOS setting. I remember with my old P5N32 SLI Deluxe mobo I had to disable the Audio97 in bios so my SoundBlaster card would work (That one was a PCI card...not built onto the mobo)

Any suggestions would be helpful, if you could tell me how u got rid of the Realtec drivers without doing a reinstall of Windows 7 Ult